MPs criticised the RAF for wasting millions on marketing while the public still struggles to understand how to lodge claims directly without lawyers.
Road Accident Fund (RAF) senior executives have been at pains to account for millions spent on two marketing contracts with a combined R1-billion price tag – with over R600 million spent in two years.
Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) yesterday demanded proof of delivery, value for money, as well as overspending from the agency’s communications head, McIntosh Polela and suspended marketing manager, Hlami Mathye.
R1-billion marketing deals under scrutiny
At the heart of the inquiry are five-year contracts awarded to media marketing firms MediaMix360 and Dzinge Production for R500 million each, running until November 2027, and December 2028, respectively.
The annual budget for each contract was set at R100 000 but by June, a combined R650 million had been spent on questionable marketing campaigns, including a R26-million SABC “misaligned” ad.
Alan Beesley of ActionSA, dealing with invoices from the firms, asked Polela, who signed off on the invoices, if he was a “100% sure” if the work claimed on the invoices had been delivered.
Scopa challenges RAF explanations
Polela said yes, adding the service providers were reputable agencies and had submitted proof of work delivered.
But Beesley took issue with Polela’s reply, saying it was “nonsensical” that Polela released the taxpayer’s money without satisfying himself that the work had been delivered.
“So, you said ‘they are good people so we do not have to check their work’…to rely on someone’s reputation to approve their invoices for me is nonsensical,” he said.
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The chair of the committee, Songezo Zibi, scolded Polela for avoiding answering questions directly and warned him to “manage the contempt in your tone” in his interaction with Beesley.
Beesley then put it to Polela that the RAF remained a mess, despite the spend on marketing.
Other committee members questioned how the purchasing of T-shirt for a staff golf day in Durban was going to help in spreading the message to the public about the claims process.
The committee members said key to the marketing campaigns was educating the public about the procedure of claiming, particularly that claimants can lodge direct claims without using lawyers.
Veronica Mente-Nkuna of the EFF said: “I receive hundreds of calls every day” from people asking for the information that would have been covered in the campaigns.
“These invoices, cumulatively, do not speak to what RAF has to do. They do not say anything about what RAF should be doing.
“We receive no less than 100 calls from people who do not know what to do. Those who have means to get to the RAF offices, are coerced to get a lawyer,” Mente-Nkuna said.
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Overspending and ethical concerns
Zibi said the media expenditure did not make sense: with over R600 million of the total five-year budget already spent, the money will be depleted before the contract duration.
Polela said the cost overrun were due to unbudgeted campaigns brought to their unit, saying last year they had to spend R30 million on a campaign outside their budget.
For the first contract, with MediaMix360, the budget had only R11 million remaining at the end of March, with more than two years left to run.
On the second contract, Dzinge Production, R245 million had been spent by the end of March, bringing the total cost spent to about R650 million out of R1 billion, with more than two years remaining.
According to Polela, in terms of MediaMix, they would have produced the booked adverts and in terms of Dzinge they would have produced marketing material, such as pamphlets and billboards as proof of work.
Mathye is on suspension in connection with the R26 million misaligned TV campaign.
Polela is implicated in unethical conduct for allegedly receiving gifts from media company Dzinge Production.
